The Poetry of Zheng Min

Selections: 1947 1995 Zheng Min was born in 1920 in Minhou, Fujian province. Zheng began writing poetry during the War of Resistance against the Japanese while at university in Chongqing during the early 1940s. At the time, she was one of a small number of poets (recently termed the Nine Leaves poets) experimenting with contemporary western modernist trends in poetry. In 1943, she travelled to the US to study, and, after completing a masters degree at Brown University in 1953, returned to live in China. Political repression and the conservative aesthetic tastes of the CCP regime meant that what little poetry Zheng wrote before the death of Mao and the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976 was not officially published at the time. During much of this period and since, she has been a professor of western literature at Beijing Normal University. Since 1976, Zheng has written much poetry and criticism, and to this day remains as active as her health allows. Golden Sheaves of Rice [] Washing Feet A Painting) [] The Times and Death [] Poverty [] The Beauty of Life: Suffering * Struggle * Endurance [ **]

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

6) When You're by Me -- O Poetry, I've Found You Again [ ] 7) Whenever I Walk this Path [ ] 8) Images of the Heart [] II. The Gate [] III. Yearning: A Male Lion [ ] IV. It [] XIII. The Whale that can not be Seen [] 9) My Oriental Soul [] IV. Snow, It can't be White [] 10) The Ghost of a Spring Cocoon [] 11) A Small Room [] 12) A False Image [] 13) An Appointment [] 14) Existence that no longer Exists [] I. Van Gogh's Pleasure Boat is Gone [] 15) Naked Exposure [ ] IX. The Wings of Swans [] X. Glass Windows [ ]

16) Heavy Lyrics [] I. Heavy Lyricism [] II. The Rec Room [] III. Roots [] IV. Looking into the Distance [] 17) Death of a Poet [] I. #1 II. #2 III. #4 IV. #7 V. #9 VI. #10 VII. #11 VIII. #17 IX. #18 X. #19 18) The Gift of Life [] I. Preface: I Say [ ] II. #1 III. #5 IV. #6 V. #10 VI. #12 19) If Curses aren't Accompanied by Deep Thought [] I. Untitled [] IV. If..... Then ..... [ ] VIII. A Century's Waiting [] IX. The Forgotten Yesterday (A dirge of an ancient culture) [ ()]

Golden Sheaves of Rice [] 1947

Golden sheaves of rice stand in the mown fields of autumn I think of innumerable weary mothers I saw at dusk on the road: the pretty wrinkled face, the day's harvest moon full above towering treetops, in the twilight, distant mountains encircle the borders to our hearts, no statue could be quieter than this. Shouldering that great weariness, here you stretch toward a far-off place in the autumn fields heads are lowered in thought, hushed. History is merely a stream flowing away from under your feet, and you, standing there, have grown into an idea of mankind.

Washing Feet A Painting) [] 1947

A deep forest scoops a trail through her chest the trail leads to -- ancient tree, hey, circling a pond here the pond reflects the image of a face, a smile flows from the image like a still flower sending forth a life of myriad motions Look over there, the color green floods out from tender leaves and melts into dull green sunlight, soaking your feet you dissolve into the forest's cold, dark tranquility, in the dim light Hey, girl, you wait happily for that other half of yourself. It's come, a squirrel skipping over a fallen leaf, it whistles, two birds are whispering, finally weariness scatters the light mist off the woods. In dreams you see him grown into a squirrel, a tall tree then grass, then a pool of water, your pale white feet sleep in the water.

The Times and Death [] 1947

Throw a wooden boat into a boundless turbulence, raise a flag into the strong wind's sky; with a rough gait, mankind wades into life's rapid flow. In the long, long ranks life and death cannot be cut asunder; each one looks back on the hardship of those behind spreads their limbs, extends an extraditing bridge, every one, so as to let some light through to those behind, shuts his own eyes forever. No more talk of destruction, terror, and the sorrow passed down from ancient times, only a noble heart changed into a stream of light in the black night, illuminating the footsteps of nighttime travellers. When the troops move forward again, each ray of vanished light is dissolved already, deep in the blood of the living, carried toward the day mankind is waiting for. If hatred grows truly out of love, then humiliation is the reason behind honor, death life's greatest climax and this lovely splendor like a rare sudden bloom of flower, even though in an instant it may whither and fall, yet leave behind a budding life.

Poverty [] 1947

Still the something we have will continue to increase, seemingly our having nothing will never happen, just as the small greenness of spring settles into a dense shadow in the end, sandstone in the desert cannot cast a green shoot. Throw away the arguments of philosophers, the fast pace of revolutionaries and the pressing calls; this state of being silently accepts the autonomous lands of have and have not. If poverty is a piece of property, how many inherit, accede to it, put up with the devastation of wind, snow, hunger, cold. One day you understand what this war is, see how the tattered clothes, the suffering lips speak its lack of glory, its never-end to you.

The Beauty of Life: Suffering * Struggle * Endurance [ **] 1947

Peck, peck, peck, you are the woodpecker at that ancient tree, incessantly spinning through my silent heart, you know a timid bug hides here, please see how I so obediently spread my limbs. Attack, attack, attack, in a flash the howling sea makes the waves to roll in, race at the foot of a tall cliff, and each detached refusal stirs the sea's blood even more. Silent, silent, silent, as if trees abandon the lush green speechlessly, suffer on in the darkness and pressure under the earth's crust, only when pain seeps deep into your body, can the soul blaze, spitting out a powerful light.

When You're by Me -- O Poetry, I've Found You Again [ ] 1979, Beijing Bist Du bei mir, Geh' Ich mit Freuden..... Green, green, the willow tendrils tremble, the thin transparent wings of early spring, sweep over the branches. Why can't people see her, this limber sprite, where are you? where? Here, right here in your heart. Her soft response. Ahh, did I bury not you?! Poetry, while the autumn wind rustled, the grass withered, the leaves fallen, my pen broken, I bore you out into the wilderness, up a mountain side, there I buried my lover. Looking back, wiping away tears, I only saw a wild dog hunger. They piled garbage on your burial mound, stinking, rotting, sun shone rain fell, but earth embraced you, digesting, absorbing. A wild gust of wind scatters winter clouds, spring rain on and on, green, green, willow tendrils tremble, thin transparent wings of early spring sweep over the branches. My limbs soaked by spring chill, stepping on fine misty rain, pass through fields, come to her grave, suddenly a soft sigh, so gentle, Hey, where are you? where? I look everywhere, Right here, dear, in your heart. From the garbage pile, from the ruins, from the black earth, Revive, wake from deep sleep, the spring calls you out, my lover, softly sighing, stretches lazily, yawns, the sorrow left behind by the funeral, like traces of glaciers, the ice and snow melted, the skylark joyfully sings, and sinks into the memory of men. Ahh, I've found you again, my lover, my face pearled in tears, when I race forward, embrace you, I only see thin smoke, one wisp, curling up, in an instant vanishes into the clear sky. What?! What?! You..... I can see you no more, your eyes so wise, in a moment the joy, transforms into grief, can it be we cannot reunite? Sad music, play again, people come and weep. But the grass on the earth softly asks: Isn't she right here? in the green of spring? the pale green of willow tendrils, the jade green of pines.....

Full of joy, I kiss the dirt of your burial mound. Let my heart grow green, I've found you again, wherever springs are green, you are there, right inside my heart, forever in my heart here.

Whenever I Walk this Path []

Whenever I walk this path ghosts curl around my feet my whole body trembles, not because of cold but because I see the burning gaze The stars of youth shouldn't cool this quickly your lush black hair can it already be ash those bright red lips can all the blood have bled away your limbs full of spring today already scattered on the wind no bone ash, no spirit tablet Ahh! The life providence granted in the end becomes a hideous grinning misunderstanding though the conscience of a few twitches who can return to the branch the apple made to fall by the wind and rain, return to us the tender cheeks of green spring, return to mothers the foetus which once wriggled in the belly? Again this year the green leaves here have grown into shade hedge-roses climb wild over fences rosy reds, jasmine whites the bright yellows and deep purples of wild blossoms all arrive as usual only the sound of your footsteps rise in the deep black night in dreams of you I fear walking this path but cannot withstand your summons from here I once walked toward the unharnessed you and so my chest swells in pain now blood ceases to flow, leaving behind only the pallid white waiting of corpses just the waiting, the waiting will quietly grow like a mushroom in the dark.

From Images of the Heart [], a sequence of 13 poems (1986)

#2 The Gate [] This gate does not exist in the human world only for the fate of a few those wanting to walk through are blocked by those wanting to walk out. Ten years can leave not one trace behind yet one look could spell eternity; no beg-your-pardon is more wistfully said than this That gate is still there but no longer exists only when people turn heads and look back can it be clearly seen that it is the gate through into the divine comedy It exists amidst the nothingness and could be anywhere

#3 Yearning: A Male Lion [ ]

In my body a mouth is opened wide, wide like a roaring male lion it charges down to a bridgehead on a great river watches the swift current below the ferry silently passing through an arch hears the roar of the times as the symbol roars in a forest it turns its head and looks at me then returns to the cage of my body the lion's gold fur like sunlight the roar of the image like a drum roll like a flower returns to me blooming vitality the lion takes me there To the bridgehead I go to meet my appointment

#4 It []

Can't forget it though the sun's already gone behind the mountain the range's long, long limbs unfolding lying down Passing through impassable armour of iron it returns to my awareness and yields there a light I alone can see

#13 The Whale that can not be Seen []

She cannot see that strongest concentration of life cannot touch that densest mass, gathered together the bulk of bright blue sea gathered around the swimmer's pale white body the deep dark forest covers the black bear tracks painfully she hunts, imagines, waits despair and again despair discovering herself one day already inside it surrounded in a caress digested swallowed up She finally finds the burning point of life when the unseeable whale has eaten her up, digested

From My Oriental Soul [] (a sequence of 7 poems) 1987

#4 Snow, It can't be White [] Snow I don't know if it's white or not a black roof-topped sixth floor, New York's 122nd Street stains the pure white of the snow An old church bell sounds stirring the bitter taste of solitude touching the snow, kissing it together with the wind it lifts its top off the roof line irregular force and male uneasiness invade the holy mother's calm face Beyond the windows in the building snow is red, blue, brown perhaps it is black pain and grey loneliness snow dripping from the sound of the bell cannot be white

The Ghost of a Spring Cocoon [] 1987

The ghost of a cocooned spring strokes the pitch-black earth with her silk white sleeves her white damask dancing shoes spin like awls her raised face cannot see the light of moon and stars this is not the night but the sun is picked up by Chinese-chess players for a game. From outside the picture a noise passes in like a stack of china bowls smashed its glad and ruthless laughter a venting of hostility On a tender green mulberry leaf spring's cocoon pierced by transparency undergoing the pains of a hard birth Turning vainly the spinning-wheel waits ten, a hundred, a thousand years sleep in peace the dark of the night seems sweet immortality rots continuously soaked in honey cocooned once more in its ancient corpse the transparency of liquid silk stiffens A moth flies from the coffin flutters in the limitless dark scattering its grey eggs.

A Small Room [] 1987

The small room is so quiet past views come here often the fetal movement in a mother's body Thrown outside, your thick, thick walls some people jeer at you the frivolous laughter, also the worship of slaves here that's only hard thought the cold stiffening after excited seething the deep night after the day The small room has solid walls my thoughts repeatedly strike them cast out and bounced back the sound of an empty valley lacking your honesty too Tell me, what am I.

A False Image [] 1987

A grey wind shivers the window dumping the resentment of thousands of years before it like a mother, I howl and weep enduring it if howling could bite right through the heart's restraints let it continue How old the open grave so heavy the grudge The wind is able to push wildly at the windmill This morning the sun comes to say yesterday was all wrong, see the sky is so blue, pay no heed From today on, we have only clear skies and I stare oddly at it the gust from the heart blows me over

An Appointment [] 1987

I thought we were all old but time and again you fly up over the horizon reaching out your long arm of foam following my feet that stand on a beach you present pale white lips to me until I must soak my feet in your icy green jade silently you roll away the fine sand under my feet carried back to your dark deep the more I sink the deeper I go down feel for a brief instant life close over me until in time you are compelled by the receding tide slowly to leave and I spy my feet once more She goes far away leaves behind a long wet mark as long as the shore equally convoluted, equally hard to understand.

From Existence that no longer Exists [] (a series of 4 poems)1988 #1 Van Gogh's Pleasure Boat is Gone []

Staggering along the North Sea's shore in the sky an ink-black cloud bank rolls cleaning away the white caps the enormous wind blows away all tourists Looking out from an empty sidewalk cafe: only violent, dark grey sea van Gogh's colorful boat is gone the vivid reds and greens that make it hard to sleep gone. Luckily the rain storm drives off the illusions and disappointments of a clear sky van Gogh's pleasure boat is long gone actually, ever since folk blundered along the shore of the North Sea no longer harboring belief in the other side. Perhaps cataracts have developed people cannot see that being which no longer is but the poet Strunt says "No matter where, I always am that lost part"

From Naked Exposure [ ] (a sequence of 11 poems) 1987-1988 #9 The Wings of Swans []

Between freedom and unfreedom swans swim in the park lake herons pass through come and go their wings uncut The swans gracefully live in the park's middling state nobody knows if they are happy or not

#10 Glass Windows []

The world does not welcome a transparent window it exposes a proper noun like a person without any clothes awkward, shameful Sometimes the world welcomes a transparent window when it puts its Xmas garden on parade when it exhibits in a display window a kindly, jolly old gent People do not always welcome a bright window thick curtains keep out the black night light comes from a candlestick, a fireplace Love knows no black night? or all is night? The world welcomes a semitransparent window all things are more beautiful than shadows unfeeling reality screened by eyelashes, protecting feeble sight Only an artless child pressing his nose against the glass world I am longing for you He still has no I to perplex him

From Heavy Lyrics [] (a sequence of 7 poems) 1988 #1 Heavy Lyricism []

As if coming out of wood coming out of stone the heart is carved into the planes and curves of an abstract painting an appeal from earth to sky history is heavy you need a foundation of black cast iron to bolster the heart that still bleeds

#2 The Rec Room []

In the rec room hangs every type of mask children come in play every kind of role some cut their heads off some barter their hearts Curses, wild laughter, an uproar demons for every form of desire dance only the hero's mask cannot be found it's left on the wall The silly sainted one sobbing under the table drips his tears that cannot spread on the absorbent concrete floor they won't bring forth flowers, won't melt the river ice

#3 Roots []

A root stretches out of the distance passed through thousands of years a passageway underground when I go to rip it up so as to plant brilliant flowers I track it down, unearth it until, suddenly looking up I see a beautiful big tree With my bloody fingers I carve a symbol in it to ward off evil I know I can't dig it up It is the mother of our graves

#4 Looking into the Distance []

The air becomes the heaviest substance the sacred gold pedestal dissolves without a trace or shadow yet children's feet grow wings they gaze into the distance, fly into the distance the garbage beside them doesn't disturb them the far-off thunder and fire of lightning is the truth closest to home all drank their fill of the wine of forgetfulness and stare at the dense, distant fog like Icarus, the fearless wings could melt Bodies begin to fall like rain

From Death of a Poet [] (a sequence of 19 poems) 1989 #1 Who is it, who whose powerful fingers break this winter day's narcissus make the white juice ooze out of green jade and scallion-white stems? who is it, who whose mighty fist shatters this elegant ancient vase makes the juice of life gush out of his chest The narcissus withers the destruction of the new bride's illusions is the hand that makes a life taking back again a song not entirely sung.

#2 Unsung songs unfinished dreams peer down at me from the edge of a cloud like migrant birds flying into the haze Here the primordial age is just beginning but without the mettle of dinosaurs history goes astray in the confusion spring will not easily arrive Take it away you unsung notes Take it away you incompletely painted dreamscape the sky on that side, the earth on that Already long long lines carrying real feeling washed clean long ago compose the sequel of our story.

#4 That pair of doubting eyes watch the evening sun behind a cloud bank full of illusions and innocence unwillingly covered over by death That pair of doubting eyes ever unwilling to accept the darkness even though they once passed through the shadow of death accompanying the corpses of fellow sufferers in her chest Don't know why she's always unwilling to come down from the cloud's edge acknowledge life's cruelty Don't know why she's ever unwilling to acknowledge the empty lies of illusion life's inability to forgive

#7 The right hand lightly strokes the left an odd feeling, called loneliness a poet struggles to keep watch over his spirit garden at the end of spring's book Time rolls away step by step paintings press close leaving only a right hand gently stroking a left suddenly everything disappears, dead silence the retreating tide doesn't heed your plea to stay Like the wind whirling to sweep fallen leaves but taunted ridiculed by winter the curses chasing after you Today still pressed tight on corpses they say it's not hatred, there's no howl A beautiful reply: Merely too busy with work.

#9 Gushing up from under our feet is not yellow earth but a hundred thousand acres of billowing bluish-green seawater industriously washes the coral clean its snow-white skeleton is worry-free Your sixty-ninth winter already past you patiently wait for a bolt of lightning's fire to arrive and inscribe the final line of a lifetime's thought on your pure white bones No matter what further boiling black clouds appear on the horizon they can not hurt you you've already carried off all the weakness of flesh The dance of the flame in full bloom will absorb you and so all pretty china is left with odd curious flowers that never fall

#10 We are all fiery islands all our lives we tread red flames passed through hell, burnt through overpasses without emitting a sigh that injures our status But we envy islands of flame that find pure sweet water in a clump of grass an unbounded far-off sky above abruptly they will fly up, thin bright red feet hanging behind In a dream the lazy bear of wild thought also once flew up turned over But like an inferior hero-acrobat fell to death without a sound

#11 Winter is past, is happiness really not far away Your death ends your sixty-ninth winter a desperate Shelley once vainly imagined the west wind driving away cruel reality, blowing it far-off. After winter there's still winter, still it's winter, unending winter this morning your ways make me believe, tied up an unclear debtor, everyday in front of my door We buried your remains but that is still not enough by far A debt of thousands of years Ruins a family fortune, perhaps we must burn your sheaves of poems too stuff the greedy crematory

#17 The eye is a frozen lotus pond the stream already dry, my sixty-ninth winter stands at death's frontier checkpoint sending death on its way on the horizon a camel train moves toward a state nobody knows The happy grapes will not anxiously ask about their fate the savory red wine also forgets its roots only note after note connects into song perhaps it is anger, perhaps it is soft A whole is just a composition of fragments pieces reorganized, birth a new whole the shortsighted craftsman thinks it's the end Rest your eyes, let your limbs lie across the earth the replacement of silkworm by chrysalis, of caterpillar by butterfly scattered on hills and lakes, what is like rain is this me

#18 With the laser knife of time they cut at our bodies white brain waves are videotapes that cannot be erased, boxes of our voice tapes Smashed, harsh songs escape a desperate poet holds out a heart of pent-up blood goes to see god or the devil Anyway they are all football stars Kick a heart over to the center shoot on goal with it a good record of that fatal point Joyful shouts like wind in the fields passes through drops of blood and flies off a poet's heart goes into the net, that is the grave.

#19 When the old is dressed up as new life blocking out the sky above you layer after layer of old skin reluctant to part with the ugly fears the pain of new life Today, a deflated balloon the old skin clings tight to my body its former life already quietly escaped the immortal life of it is the death of my pain Cast my, as yet unclosed, eyes off into the distance the magnificent Northern Lights are there Poet, your final silence like a voiceless polar light plays more freely than we.

From The Gift of Life [] (a sequence of 14 poems) Nov. - Dec. 1994 Preface: I Say [ ]

I say: Poetry, I pursue Philosophy, I seek but poetry and philosophy and not bear paws and fish possibly it's a fish boiling a bear paw perhaps it's a bear paw braising a fish in one there is the rich flavor of the other People eating no longer closely question which is the fish, which is the bear paw only believing the tongue receptor of ten thousand flavors in its one forgetting that picky, biased, self-styled intelligence of the brain Long ago the fish and the bear paw forgot themselves stewed above a fiery pool of red briquettes in that invisible, black, burning, unfathomable abyss.

#1 What is hard to accept is love's eternal transformations hatred's stubborn persistence and the unwillingness of bitterness to vanish the distant undulating cloud once experienced cruelty too the scorching white sun also finds it hard to shirk the bath of nocturnal rain Yesterday's wild wind only broke the arms of willows observing, head raised is the unmoved old pine the excited seething of millennia only condenses its dark green its motley body is carved into an old dragon lying prone Let go when the green spring gives you an elastic grace the whirl of the instant makes even the universe dizzy the planet is just a stage on which you unfold your power What waits for you is not a muddled old age changed into a distant undulating cloud a suspended twilight gradually turning into orange, a pale blue, delivered by the universe

#5 The joy of autumn is in death the rich colors of the wings of death from gosling orange to deep brown to orangutan red but the autumn does not sigh, doesn't weep When a breeze sweeps over the crown of a big broad aspen it knocks down a brown cascade waiting on the earth is the wild joy of reunion after a long, distant journey a whispering outpour The wine of autumn rain intoxicates them all pressed tight together, cheeks dark red leaf on leaf, heap on heap, shower after shower Arriving one after another still slowly drifting down until the final leaf, the soft peel of a bell ends the summer's showy wind and clouds

#6 Outcrops in silence. We must wait. Like the fruit of peach trees, amid the damage of rainstorms and pests, endure life's whips Fruit filling a tree, outcroppings filling a gully How many can still be stained dark red? On dinner tables receive people's praise? Chance has its choice, stretches out a hand mysterious like drifting clouds passing over a border Whose footsteps are so leisurely? Whose arms so lazy a hesitant look, can it ever pass through? An outcrop hasn't an easily rotted body can bear eons of indifference and forgetfulness it is sound asleep in a deep place, pillowed by stone.

#10 Half a century we only blinked the planet never stopped spinning revolving when we woke the northern hemisphere in the litheness of spring already become the cold harsh asthma of the southern A flock of geese rushes to catch the season even in the vortex of the air's stream it doesn't lose direction the eyes of you and me are not the stars in the sky at night it's hard to recover childish dreams Dawn comes from the east the setting sun goes home to the west a weary traveller gazes up at the limitless sky beyond the sky Too bad, only in the cabin of a supersonic jet can you, at the final moment, say good-bye to the timidity of the evening sun and immediately greet the downy grey of dawn

#12 Those words that were never spoken we don't know what thicket they slipped into we are forever digging deep hoping to find their hidden loot We look up at each other angry at being duped you never really entered the pupil of my eye I am only in a place far, far away from you too but we strive, endeavor to come close The distance is already impossible to remove unless we can possess transparent bodies limitless a blue sky without a cloud bank You will become my hair skin I the earth under your feet no more the divergence of two lives

you

me

From If Curses aren't Accompanied by Deep Thought [ ] (a sequence of 9 poems) 1995 #1 Untitled []

Writing a line of poetry is like taking a sip of alcohol my soul sinks toward sleep quietly talks of the world with a valley of dreams that which is lost, please never return After waking, we are like two free white colts on unbounded green grass chasing playing until the murky evening mist finds the halters again no longer do we raise our heads to whinny, nor do hooves fly Now our manes droop, we silently stand side by side return to the pen built by people for horses

#4 If..... Then ..... [ ]

If I rush to the forest tell the birds to sing somewhat softer gently, gently don't wake the baby sound asleep in the shade If I rush to the open fields tell the sheep not to eat the wild flowers carefully, carefully leave them for the oldster haltingly coming that way Then birds sing more wildly then sheep eat more savagely when will they finally be able to understand why creation made them gifts of voice and green grass?

#8 A Century's Waiting []

The winter's waiting winter's grey clouds toss and turn waiting for snow The sparse willow branches are brittle loneliness hangs in the swaying of branch-tips waiting makes the weak and small live waiting makes the imperious tremble Amid the tossing and turning the grey clouds finally spill down white snow goose down scattering winnowing in a blink the soundless white wilderness transforms all that is impetuous into forgetfulness A temporary forgetting is a bird flying passing on the waiting of a century nearing its end

#9 The Forgotten Yesterday (A dirge of an ancient culture) [ ()] A flock of ancient animals their hurried footsteps race between perilous peaks of glass and steel they have thousands of years of yesterday they once had written words to be proud of but today the library at Alexandria is sealed today they pant amid the press of glass and steel. Several times the invasions of foreign nations has been digested by these volumes absorbed, reborn, multiplied. But a hand reaches out from inside pinching off the words of each classic, extracting a nerve of the old culture from the spine of the ancient animal now he's forgotten the form of the words lost the ear to listen to the old zither the eye to see mountains and rivers of splashed ink after they walk through the palace of knowledge its roof dark blue like the seaside they are stunned, blinded, bewildered like people of another land The sun of the twenty-first century shines on Beijing, Shanghai Shenzhen, Hainan Island The twenty-first century's sea wind blows their long hair ancient animals light in years sturdy bodies long-distance runners record-breakers their faces in the dark facing the future behind them a long-forgotten path on the far-off silk Road long shadows and the sound of bells of the final camel train moving toward death at Lou-lan1 The long-running giraffe the ocean-crossing dolphin
1

Loulan: A warlike state during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.) located in what is now the western Chinese territory of Xinjiang.

possession of the great wealth of a capitalist already lost the cliff paintings of ancestors, the writings on bamboo slips in a stretch of forgetfulness a blank yesterday extends out from the desert's tomorrow Desert links desert footprints vanish in the wind the lake of the crescent moon dries out in corrosion Who will suddenly recover his senses? Abruptly look back, shocked to see: Death walking out of graves like terracotta warriors just waking on both sides smashing the steel bones and glass clamping in the sky the tall peaks pressing at their chests the entire troop returns to the vast prairie the harnessing of sand begins at Loulan the flock of old animals finds its way back to the source of water This isn't the recurrence of a dream cock your ears and hear the sound of wind beyond the pass yesterday calls to tomorrow please don't be so insensitive so frivolous as to forget the pretty embroidered gowns and let the calculators of the bourse steal the old soul away.